So it's a good friend of mine, Brian Blanchfield, who--
see, Brian grew up in North Carolina,
and while there and beyond, I would
say that his two main formative influences were
Dolly Parton and Hart Crane.
[WHOOPING]
You can see here, you have--
you can actually-- you can think about this as, kind of,
a multimedia introduction to Brian.
[LAUGHTER]
In press, which would be Hart Crane, and music, Dolly Parton.
Got some heads, and just, kind of, think about all these books
here, and there are all--
all the words in them, kind of got out
and started running around the room.
Brian's like a naughty cowboy who gathers them up and makes
little poems out of them.
So you just see them and then think of them here as,
maybe he's taking like a little kaleidoscope and putting it--
you want to look at it, so he's putting in your ear--
it's like a phone.
Brian has an MFA from Warren Wilson,
where he studied with poets such as Heather McHugh.
And so Brian's poems, they're not only words--
when you listen to them, it's like a little guy that--
it's not only the words that are meaningful,
but it's also the syntax.
So what might seem to be words out of order,
or words kind of funny and moving around,
it's all deliberate and everything is decided.
So it's almost like we're moving--
you're moving along as you go, and you're also--
the words are piling on top of each other, kind of like kids
and their sandwich in there and you eat it.
So my favorite of all Brian's writing is--
I don't know if he's going to read this poem,
but this is my favorite thing of all that I read once,
and I am so happy, was--
there's was one of his poems of--
somebody [INAUDIBLE] out sitting in Union Square Park in New York,
and so the person looks up and there's a little computer
cursor floating around.
And it moves along a telephone wire,
and there are pigeons there, and it starts editing--
[LAUGHTER]
--moving them around.
And it's nice but also--
but you think, in that one image,
we deal with many, many bigger issues.
Got birds in flight, and technology, and nature,
and communication, and editing.
And so Brian worked at a publisher
that was outside of that park where he did editing things.
So it's not so simple.
And Brian was here in Tucson, teaching a class
at the Poetry Center, called Chance and Constraint.
Which goes along with that whole cowboy idea of constraint
and round means chance.
All right, so anyways.
So I volunteered at the Poetry Center
when Brian was teaching, which was a crazy coincidence, being
that Brian and I met in New York.
And there we are sitting in Tucson
in one building at the same time, as he's teaching.
And Brian is a great and amazing teacher.
I think, for me, he's--
probably I wouldn't be doing the MFA program here,
if it wasn't for his encouragement
and energizing of my own writing.
And for students at the end of the class
it was like Six Flags over Tucson after the fireworks.
People were just so happy.
So, Brian's first collection of poetry, Crook of Luxury,
will be published soon by University of California Press.
And also, not only is Brian a poet,
but he's a superhero because saved my life last weekend,
as I almost plummeted to my death,
and slowly, calmly talked me the words up off the rock wall
and back into life.
So here he is, Brian Blanchfield.
[APPLAUSE]